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Starting A New Translation Project

User interface translations of xTuple ERP are now being managed in the xTuple source code repositories on GitHub. This new method replaces the former management of translations in the now deprecated xTuple Translation Portal. If you would like to contribute a new translation of xTuple ERP—or generally participate as an xTuple translator—you must familiarize yourself with using GitHub repositories, if you are not already. We have published some limited documentation explaining basic git usage. However, there is no substitute for one-on-one help. If you have a friend who already knows GitHub, ask them to help you get started in the right direction.

Overview of Steps

The absolute best and fastest way to get started creating a new translation of xTuple ERP is to first translate the xTuple phrase book. The phrase book contains about 1,000 of the most commonly used words and phrases in xTuple ERP—including the majority of menu labels. Once the phrase book has been translated into your language, it can be applied to an empty translation file (i.e., xtuple.base.ts), and your translation will be off to a good start!

Working with the Phrase Book

The phrase book is designed to speed up the process of translating xTuple ERP from English into other languages. By translating the phrase book first, you are accomplishing a large portion of the work required to translate xTuple into your language. The phrase book includes the following categories of words and terms:

Most commonly used words and terms

Application menu terms

To help translators understand the words and terms which appear in xTuple ERP, we have put together a Translation Glossary. This glossary of terms includes many of the words found in the xTuple phrase book.

You will need to download a copy of Qt Linguist to edit the phrase book. You will also need a copy of the xTuple phrase book, which is attached to this page. Once you have installed Qt Linguist, open the xTuple phrase book using the "Phrases" menu, as shown in the following screenshot:

Opening xTuple Phrase Book in Qt Linguist

You will be prompted to locate the xTuple phrase book on your file system. Simply browse your computer for the location where you saved the xTuple phrase book. Then simply select the file and click on the OPEN button, as shown in the next screenshot:

Locating xTuple Phrase Book on Your Computer

Next you will go to the "Phrases" menu again to open the phrase book for editing. The next screenshot shows how to select the "Edit Phrase Book" option. Assuming you opened the xTuple phrase book successfully, then it will appear as shown below:

Opening xTuple Phrase Book for Editing

The next screen shows the editing screen for the xTuple phrase book, before any translations have been added to it. The first column contains the source phrases. The source phrases are the words and terms as they appear in English in xTuple ERP. The second column (once translated) will contain your translations of the source phrases. You do not need to enter information in the "Definition" field. While the definition field may be useful in some scenarios, you only need to translate the source phrases.

Of course, you do not have to complete the phrase book in one session! You can always save your work and come back to it later. Simply select the SAVE button to save your work. To reopen the phrase book for editing later, simply follow the steps described previously.

When you are finished, the phrase book should look like the Russian phrase book shown in the following screenshot. In this example, you can see the translations appearing to the right of the source phrases. The Russian phrase book was submitted by an xTuple community member. And now the Russian translation is part of the xTuple translation repository!